Over the week end I have stitched (APG 3. Beta - Windows 32) a panorama with a lot of sky:

- about 10 images horizontally aligned (X 3 for bracketing) shot with telelens- color correction set to LDR- multiband level set to 0

The town below the sky is perfect but the sky at, say, 5 different places over the width of the panorama is unclean, grey (the usual bug). In the past, I have seen several posts about this bug. What is the present situation in term of bug resolution ? What must I do to improve the sky ?

The preview with other multiband levels, either negative or positive, is worse than with 0...

I have done as you propose and will get the result tonight, when I am back home. What I however noticed is that the preview has remained unchanged (grey areas still there) following these modifications. I did not change the position of the reference anchorS (1 per bracket), as all the images (1 raw) exhibit the same proportion of sky.

HiIf your test isn't successfullym try once again whithout any reference images/anchor points.I try out and test the new 3.0 for color correction and found, that without ref/anchor, the results are the best in blending.Even when overlapping zones are handmade and irregular like in your case.Have you try to correct the vignetting before stitching with APG? It looks like there is a lot of this.

Last edited by lumelix on Wed Sep 26, 2012 8:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If it's the blending/color correction itself, Kolor says this is a priority for V3.1.But what you think about vignetting. You only have one row and the dark zones arealways between the images. Until now, APG did not correct vignetting.

Btw. For tests, render at 50% or smaller. Faster and you see if it's ok or not.

Last edited by lumelix on Wed Sep 26, 2012 8:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

To Lumelix: I confirm that the rendering has not improved with your suggested solution; regarding vignetting, I have not tested it. What method would you suggest to process it ? I am not sure that Nikon Capture NX2 can perform an automatic vignetting correction. It will only apply the value that I will set up : not optimal at all !

Hi hermerI use NX2 for correct vignetting, also when shooting panos with the AFS300mm 2.8 or with TC20E.But it's not automatic. I have to find the correct value for the usual used aperture. Most of time i shootwide open (2.8 / 5.6). The correction value in NX2 is then around 50%.You can try out the correct value by shot a piece of blue sky, copy a small section in the corner to the center and lookif it differs. If not, you have found the correct value for this settings.Once you have found these settings, you can store them for later recall.

I don't know if there is a software that can do this absolutely automatic for every camera/lens/converter/aperture combination.But I suspect not. Adobes PS and its lens profiles doesn't do the job as well as NX2 (and I found that RAW conversion is also better in NX2).Maybe DxO Optics Pro can do that, because this guys are testing a lot equipment. But I haven't test it until now:http://dxo.com/intl/photo/dxo_optics_pro/for_your_equipment

Last edited by lumelix on Thu Sep 27, 2012 10:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

The reason why I think about vignetting is because I never have such an issue with a single row pano.And I found that the color correction since APG V3 A2 is really improved.But as Klaus wrote, the color correction in APG have still some issues. I found a lot of errors when using gammaand exposure correction together or with color correction in giga panos with more than one row.You have to note that APG don't correct the vignetting until now. It does a little optimization while blending,so vignetting is less visible, but this can not replace a real vignetting tool.I found in giga panos, it's really necessary to correct vignetting first, even with the 600mm combo.Otherwise, vignetting is always visible as darker bands between the images, most in the sky.

Try Klaus's suggestion and use once only exposure correction with no or only one "reference image".You can also completely deactivate the color correction to see what happens. If you have still these grey areas,it has nothing to do with the color correction.Try also different multiband levels form -3 to 0 and try other than multiband (nothing or linear) to see what happens.For tests you can render the pano really small, 20% or 50% or so. Then you have the result faster.

I just see that you have dehazed the images. And when I'm looking to the clouds, it looks something like tonemapped ?

Last edited by lumelix on Thu Sep 27, 2012 3:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I have tested as suggested by Klaus : exposure instead of gamma - No improvement.

I will try with no color correction... but does that make sense with 3 exposures and exposure fusion ?

I have not tonemapped the images: I have shot 3 brackets and put all the images in Autopano, to perform exposure fusion, as I use to do. I have dehazed (50%) the under and over exposed images; I have also made a try with all 3 exposures dehazed.

Oh, I have overlook this in the first post. Have you done bracketing by exposure time? Certainly!I'm not shure but with braketing you should better use the HDR option in color correction.http://www.autopano.net/wiki-en/action/view/LDR_/_HDR_:_How_it_worksWorkflow case E. Did you so?What is if you take only one of the exposures, eg. the one where the sky is well exposed?

I have been searching for the perfect workflow and tried several. For now I'm happy with this flow:- shooting raw spheres with the E-M5 and Leica 25mm f1.4 @f8- developing with DXO - which has modules for both the house and the lens: remove vignetting and lens distortions- detecting in APG with "Lens distortion correction" disabled

This gives me a much better result than e.g. developing in Lightroom 4 and use the APG "Lens distortion correction"In DXO it is important that there is modules for the lens/house combo.

In my own case (Nikon camera and Lens), DOP had the right information in its database.

But I have not disabled lens distortion correction...

The panorama looks however perfect... at first glance. However, when I darken the sky (e.g. with a progressive filter in Nikon Capture NX2), some greyish areas tend to reappear. So, there is still an issue that lens distortion correction disabling might have permitted to avoid...